Road Trippin'

guash, what a week!!

The best to get into the mood for this story is to listen to this song (Red Hot Chili Peppers - Road Trippin') and have a look at this pic... so, ready for the road??

In Wellington I was welcomed by the shittiest weather ever on this whole trip: grey, cold, rainy and really, really windy. Honestly, no way I’d go out! I didn’t see much of Wellington therefore apart from the must-see museum Te Papa (which reminded me a lot of the Rotorua Museum) and of course Ricky’s flat.

Ricky is the guy I had been planning this upcoming roadtrip with via Couchsurfing. He's from Indonesia, he used to work as a chef first in Wellington before starting to work in Queenstown one week later. And in between his two jobs we squeezed our great roadtrip.

But hey, did I forget something? 

Yes, right… moving out. 

Damn it...

So what else could I have done on these shitty days in Wellington than helping Ricky to move out and get everything sorted out. Which was simply endless... 

We didn’t count all the bags of rubbish and all the bottles, but it was heaps (you can't see all of them on this pic)! We didn’t count them, but at the landfill they got weighted: 160kg of rubbish!! Hell, Ricky, what have you been doing?!

Before finally leaving the next morning, we got a perfect treat: dining in the very restaurant he used to work for and staying overnight in the connected hotel. At least have one warm night - all the upcoming nights our bed was his car (and yes, it was freezing outside at some point - see later). But in fact I can't complain: it was nice and cosy in there, with all the duvets and beddings...

So yes, may I introduce our home for one week: the 4WD Mazda Marvie. Ricky insisted though that it was masculine hence his name Marvin (too much drama with girls apparently... yeah, whatever...). Me too I thought masculin fits our home-on-wheels better. But not because of dramas, but because of the guy-like pinch-drinking. This one was definitely a big drinker...

We tried to include as much as possible in our one-week trip. As much beautiful landscape as possible. Not difficult on the Southern island I can tell you! It is stunningly beautiful! 

The first night we went to the Abel Tasman National Park, where we went kayaking the next day. It is such a peaceful activity, nicely calm! We went close to seals who were just sunbathing. It is funny how they are lolling in the sun all the time - really funny animals to watch. Bathing in the water they love doing 360° turns. 

The photo of me with this big fellow was taken a few days later though in Kaikoura.

Kaikoura is a perfect place for whale watching (flying over them, or by boat). The geography of the place is just stunning too: a beautiful small peninsula, really rocky shore and closeby inland high snowpeaked mountains. Great!

I skipped the rather expensive whale watching experiences, however got up really early to see some dolphins. They usually swim close to the shore in the mornings and evenings... I got many good photos of the shore, but no dolphins. Well, you can't have everything, right?!

Maybe I'll see dolphins in Fiji...

But before we even got to Kaikoura we had been at the Nelson Lakes. We arrived quite late in the evening on the campground,where heaps of rabbits were hopping around ("dinner" Ricky would shout out!). As it was already pitch-black night we didn't see at all, where we were. That much better it was to wake up with this view:

After that, we went on via the Lewis Pass, a beautiful road through the mountains. In fact, I am really happy to be here in New Zealand in winter. All the mountains have snow on the top, it looks so lovely! So, yes, after a long time I have finally seen snow again. But, hey, where's my Glühwein?????

Anyhow, after a stop in Hanmer Springs (hot spring baby!), where we met friends of Ricky, we continued to Kaikoura, from where we continued to Akaroa, a peninsula south of Christchurch. 

Again, a really beautiful spot, many high peaks and many bays. New Zealand has it all close by...

Ricky was looking for the perfect wave (das ist die perfekte Welle, der perfekte Tag...), but he was not lucky. No waves for our surfer guy - because the waves we saw at this peninsula, hell, they were MASSIVE!! Again - you can't really see in this video how massive they were, but 3m high is NOT exaggerated!

From there we made all our way inland again to Lake Tekapo. Same like with Nelsons Lake: arriving late and waking up next to Wonderland! 

Isn't it just beautiful??

And for Ricky it was a wonderland too: in the small river next to our campground were heaps of fish... While I went into "town" to have a nice coffee he had his big battle agains the fish, who didn't really want to get caught (surprise surprise). 

But finally when I got back the score was Ricky:1, fish: 0 (next morning the score even went up: Ricky: 2, fish: 0). 

We had the best dinner ever: fresh fish smoked over a nice hot fire... that was sooo good! But, hey, talking about food: I mentionned that Ricky was a chef, right? Oh, he did his job well: for the whole week I had only the best food, simply delicious. 

The last big challenge and plan of our trip would have been to go up to Müllers hut, next to New Zealands highest mountain Mount Cook. I would really have loved to go up there, but it just shouldn't be: the mountain was covered in clouds and fog (I didn't even see it) and for the climb up we would have needed crampons and ice axes, which we didn't have. Too bad...

Well, we would have been freezing (or freesing?!...) up there anyway...

Skipping this hike we drove into Queenstown one day earlier than supposed - ready for a big fantastic burger! Fergburger is an institution here in Queenstown - the burgers as big as Shebeen burgers (well, the meat is flatter though), however they have fancier options: like the Little Bambi (wild fiordland deer with Thai plum chutney) hmmmmm...

No worries Shebeen: I am still really looking forward to eating a Burgi-burger again ;)

Queenstown is the adventure capital of the world - that's how they call themselves and I guess they deserve this name. Bungy jumping was invented here (I mentionned the crazy Nevis bungy jump, right?? 134m...). But apart from bungy jumping, you can do all the other adventure stuff like jet skiing, sky diving, rafting,... And of course skiing, snowboarding, ice skating... The winter season just begun - or rather will start with the winter festival in two days (damn it, I'll miss that: will be gone by tomorrow)

I didn't do any of the adventure or winter stuff but just enjoyed the really nice small touristy town - it is lovely indeed. And I did some trips in the regions... but more about that in my next story!